More than just good looks, the Ween smart thermostat has brains as well

You'd be forgiven at first glance for having no idea what the Ween actually does. Between the odd name and the design that makes it look like the star of "Wall-E 2", it's not immediately obvious that this is a smart thermostat, or as the French manufacturers call it a "home smart time solution".

(For an American audience, the fact the read out is in Celsius might add even more to the confusion, but that's just how France rolls. And England. And Australia. And anywhere apart from Bahamas, Belize, the Cayman Islands, Palau and the US.)

Ween has just completed its second round of funding and it's expected to be available in its native France within three months before moving on to rest of the world. The device has the usual automated temperature controls that are the hallmarks of the connected thermostat in the modern smart home. It also automatically adjusts the temperature in real-time based on your absences from the house.

To detect all this in real time it pairs with your smart phone, determining your whereabouts and raising or lowering the temperature accordingly. Ween claims that this means it "boasts twice the savings compared to a learning thermostat" but its not immediately clear just exactly how this differs from such thermostats like, for example, the Nest.

The design is certainly markedly different, with the little silver 'hat' acting as the main interface: twist to adjust temperature, tap to confirm. All very simple, but with the downside that you'll still need a wall mounted unit for it to communicate with.

One thing the manufacturers were extremely eager to make clear: no data of any kind regarding your whereabouts is stored on the cloud. It's all device based for "the best security".